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Archive for the tag “JD Wetherspoon”

We all know by now that the Red Lion in Colchester was originally the White Lion because this was the emblem of the Howards but was renamed because the family was out of favour at James I’s accession.

History definitely wasn’t on my mind today but fish and chips in Ipswich town centre was. I chose the Golden Lion, a well-known Wetherspoon by the Cornhill, and read the above note on my menu. Again, it is a former White Lion in Howard country and is unrecorded before 1571, unlike the Colchester venue which is established as the home of Sir John Howard in the years before the Mowbray Dukes of Norfolk became extinct in 1482.

The latter date is significant because the fourth Howard Duke of Norfolk, Thomas, was executed in 1572 for treason that encompassed marrying Mary of Scotland. His attainder was not reversed until the Restoration, perhaps because…

Like this:

I can’t agree that Leicester is shamelessly “milking” Richard III for all he’s worth. On the contrary, it seems to me that it’s Richard in the driving seat, and Leicester is having to rush around to keep up with him! Not that Leicester is complaining. Why should they? Richard was an excellent king who knew what he was doing, so of course they bow to his commands! I would too.

Wetherspoons now have two hostelries named after Richard, the other being The Lord High Constable of England, in my home city of Gloucester. Come on Wetherspoons, York, why not a Duke of Gloucester? Or a Good King Richard?

Many of you will remember reading, perhaps in “The Last Days of Richard III”, how John Speed went to Leicester looking for the site of the Greyfriars but confused it with the Blackfriars which was in a far worse state of repair thus no royal body could possibly have survived.

Yesterday, I lunched at the “Robert Ransome” in Ipswich – table 22 in case you ask. On the wall were several interesting photos, including Speed’s 1610 Ipswich map. Apart from his unaccountable failure to include the railway station, it compares well with the town four centuries later.